All day I’ve been amused by the news that Obama couldn’t even get 60% of the Democratic vote in Kentucky against… nobody. 42% of Kentucky primary voters chose “uncommitted” over Obama.
And all day, this has seemed somehow… familiar. But I couldn’t place it until I saw James Taranto’s headline: “Nobody for President!”
A-ha!
Back in 1992, a very strange man named Grant Morrison* wrote issue #52 of a very strange comic book called Doom Patrol. In it, the very strange superhero team of the title had to stop a very, very strange supervillain named Mr. Nobody from destroying the world by declaring he was running for president and then tricking everyone into wishing themselves into a mystical painting. If that doesn’t make sense to you, that was exactly the point. Mr. Nobody’s sidekicks were named the Brotherhood of Dada, all their schemes were absurdist nonsense, and basically the whole thing was an excuse for Morrison to be as silly as possible.
It was a lot of fun. But I had no idea it would turn out to be so prophetic.
Here are a few representative pages from the comic:
Yeah. That sort of thing happened a lot. But the “good” weirdoes beat the “bad” weirdoes, and the world was safe once again. Until the next issue, of course.
These days, Morrison is writing Superman, and just this month he cast Obama in the role:
And yet 20 years ago, Morrison predicted the rise of Obama’s newest opponent: Nobody.
Defy the tyranny of the predictable, Democrats! Nobody 2012!
*Morrison most recently made news by declaring that Batman is “very, very gay.” This was weeks before DC Comics said they were changing the sexual orientation of one of their long-time characters. Coincidence?